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Skills focus
Scan Reading
Sometimes when reading we know the kind of information we are
looking for. For example, in
question 1, page 18, you know you have to look for a number; in
question 3, you need to look for
'London' or '1989', and the answer will be close by. We don't need
to read to find this
information, rather, our eyes search across, up, down, and around
the text. This skill is called
'scanning'. Think about how you look up a word in a dictionary. You
scan the page to find the
word you are looking for, you don't read the page. The most
important thing about scanning is
speed. We do it quickly.
Practice 1
Answer questions 1-4 as quickly as possible using the text below.
Use your watch to time yourself.
It should take you 1 minute.
1 How much of the human body is water?
2 How much water does the average person use for bathing?
3 How many people die per day from diseases related to dirty water?
4 How many litres of water does it take to make one pair of leather
shoes?
The human body is about 65 per cent water. If you stopped
drinking water (or drinks and food containing water) you would die
within three or four days. But the water you drink must be clean.
Each day an average person uses the following amounts of water:
Toilet flushing 35 litres
Cooking and drinking 30 litres
Bathing 30 litres
Using a shower 12-20 litres
The average daily total per person is 140 litres. The average
family uses 480 litres of water a day.
Water can carry diseases. According to a recent report published
by the united Nations, every day
throughout the world about 25,000 people die from diseases related
to dirty water.
It takes 31,600 litres of water to make one tone of steel. It
takes 53 litres of water to make one pair
of leather shoes and 9 litres of water to make every comic that you
read.
Key:1 65% 2 30 litres 3 25000 4 53 litres
Practice 2
Before you answer the following questions, decide what kind of
answer, or which words from
the question, you are looking for. Then answer the question. You
have 2 minutes.
1 Give two examples of cities which have no sewerage.
2 Where is half of household income spent on water?
3 What must Lagos inhabitants do on 'sanitation day'?
4 Where do more than 60% of Third World people live?
5 In the 1970s, how many people had no proper means of waste
disposal?
Meanwhile, people in the Third World can only envy the
levels of health risk faced by those of us
who can turn on a tap or flush a toilet. Most cities in Africa and
many in Asia-Dakar, Kinshasa
and Chittagong, for example, gullies and ditches are where most
human excrement and household
waste end up.
People draw their drinking water from a standpipe which only
operates for a few hours each day.
Women still wash clothes and bathe their children in a muddy stream.
In Nairobi, Jakarta,
Bangkok and elsewhere, families are forced to purchase water from a
vendor, paying ten times the
rate charged to houses with mains connections (in Khartoum it is 18
times more expensive). In
some parts of Sudan, half of household income is spent on water.
As city populations rapidly expand, water and sanitation
services are put under pressures
unimaginable to those who build them. But at least fear of
epidemic-repeating the terrible ravages
of cholera in nineteenth-century Europe-encourages action in city
halls. Lagos, for example, used
to be a watchword for urban filth. Now there is a monthly
'sanitation day' on which moving
around the city is banned: everyone must pick up a shovel and clean
their neighbourhood.
But until very recently, the sanitary environment inhabited by
more than 60 per cent of Third
World people-the countryside-was left to take care of itself. The
woman carrying her container to
the well, washing her laundry in the stream, leaving her toddlers to
squat in the compound, had
never seen a pipeline nor a drain; no faucet graced her village
square, let alone her own backyard.
At the end of the 1970s, 1.2 billion people in the Third World were
without a safe supply of
drinking water and 1.6 billion without any proper means of waste
disposal.
Key: 1 Any two of Dakar, Kinshasa and Chittagong
2 Some parts of Sudan
3 Clean their neighbourhood
4 In the countryside
5 1.6 billion people
Skills Focus
Skim reading
Getting the main ides of a text or paragraph quickly is called
skim reading. There are different
ways of skim reading:
i If you're very short of time or reading, for example, a newspaper
article, you might just read the
heading and the first sentence of each paragraph. This is often
enough to give you a fair idea of the
content.
ii For texts that you have to understand more fully, you might run
your eyes along all the lines of
the
text, trying to pick out the key words and ignore unknown words and
'grammar' words (e.g.
to , and, is, the) which do not contribute to the main idea.
As city populations rapidly expand, water and sanitation services
are put under pressures
unimaginable to those who build them. But at least fear of
epidemic-repeating the terrible ravages
of cholera in nineteenth-century Europe-encourages action in city
halls. Lagos, for example, used
to be a watchword for urban filth. Now there is a monthly
'sanitation day' on which moving
around the city is banned: everyone must pick up a shovel and clean
their neighbourhood.
ROADS FOR PEOPLE！HELP
CREATE
A National
Cycle Network
The figures speak for themselves. Over 20 million cars registered
in Britain and road traffic is
projected to at least double by the year 2025.
Twice as much traffic on your roads…Imagine it!
Yet many more people would choose to make their shorter journey
by cycle-if only the road
conditions fell safe.
Now, an answer to this problem is being created.
THE 5000-MILE NATIONAL CYCLE NETWORK
For fifteen years, Sustrans-it stands for ' sustainable
transport'-has been building traffic-free
routes for cyclists and walkers., often through the heart of towns
and cities. Several hundred
miles are now completed, using disused railway lines, canal
towpaths, riversides and unused land,
As a civil engineering charity, we work in partnership with local
authorities and landowners.
We are now promoting a true national network, composed of
traffic-free paths, quiet country
roads ,on -road cycles lanes and projected crossings.
Safe cycling networks already exist in many parts of
Europe-including Denmark, Germany,
Switzerland and the Netherlands. Europeans are often astonished at
the road dangers we put up
with here.
A Danish cyclist is ten times less likely to be killed or
seriously injured- per mile cycled-than a
cyclist in Britain. Extensive national and local cycle routes there
are supported by slower traffic
systems on surrounding roads.
A national cycle network for Britain can help transform
local transport for the twenty-first century.
With your help, it really is achievable! Make a donation now!
1 Sustrans is
A a local authority
B a construction company
C a civil engineering charity
D a cycle network
2 How many cars are expected to be on Britain's roads in 2025?
A one million
B more than 40 million
C exactly 40 million
D twice as much traffic
Key: 1C 2 B
Question 3-7
Answer the questions using no more than three words from the text
for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 3-7 on your answer sheet.
3 How many miles of the network have already been completed?
4 At what are other European cyclists surprised that British
cyclists accept?
5 In addition to cycle network, what does Denmark have to protect
cyclists?
6 How can people help create a national cycle network in Britain?
7 Apart from cyclists ,who benefits from the work of Sustrans?
Key:3 several hundred miles
4 (the) road dangers
5 slower traffic systems
6 by donating money/make a decision
7 walkers
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